Moving offices across street frees up space for City Hall

Jul. 6, 2013

Helping to move the city's Community Development Office from City Hall to a new building next door Wednesday are Jeremy Williams (from left), Darrin Smith and Eric Berkness. / Elisha Page / Argus Leader

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David Pfeifle

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Several city departments are moving to a nearby leased building in an effort to relieve a space crunch in City Hall.

The economic development division of community development, the city attorney’s office, human relations and risk management all will move across the street from City Hall to 100 S. Dakota Ave. Community Development moved earlier this week. The other departments begin moving Wednesday.

The city, under terms of a three-year lease, will be paying slightly less than $100,000 per year to occupy the space.

Last year, the city underwent a space-needs assessment done by TSP Inc. that suggested several specific departments move and some remodeling work be done on the ground floor of City Hall to make more room for city staff and the customer service areas on the ground floor, said Sue Quanbeck Etten, director of Central Services.

“It seemed like City Hall was so cramped for space, and it seemed kind of like space was unevenly distributed, with some areas having maybe sufficient space, and then other areas really just kind of crammed in. I think it was one of those things that over time just kind of evolved that way, where certain departments just made do with what they had,” Quanbeck Etten said. “The city continues to grow, so it kind of makes sense that we would outgrow the space we have in City Hall, as we add additional full-time employees now and then.”

In addition to the moves, the ground floor of City Hall, where the public obtains various permits, 8,000 to 9,000 a year, will undergo remodeling, probably next year. That’s intended to create more efficient use of space and make it easier for visitors to maneuver, she said.

“They have a lot of foot traffic,” she said. “It’s cramped, and there’s lots of hallways.”

No cost or final plans have been developed for the project, which she hopes to be bid by the end of the year. The project would begin next year.

The leased space across the street once included law offices, so the area will be conducive to housing the city attorney’s office, said City Attorney Dave Pfeifle.

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He said the department will have more storage capability in the new space.

“It would certainly suit our needs,” he said. “We have an ample amount of items to store. As you can imagine, a law office generates quite a bit of paperwork.”

The community development office underwent remodeling in 2010 at a cost of $18,000 to accommodate the newly created economic development division. But half that amount was spent on office furniture, which will continue to be used for the economic development division at the new location across the street, said Darrin Smith, director of community development.

“The space in City Hall that we remodeled, we took a space that was an underutilized space and created workable, professional office space for what was, at the time, a new division. It’s still good office space, and it will be utilized in this new plan,” Smith said. “We are really a perfect fit (to move) from a square footage perspective here; we don’t interact with the general public on a daily basis like some departments and some staff do in City Hall.”

The economic development division, one of three divisions within community development, includes Smith and five full-time employees. The division works closely with the Governor’s Office of Economic Development and the Sioux Falls Development Foundation to recruit businesses to Sioux Falls and to help others expand to create jobs. Primarily, however, Smith said the division works with local developers to create opportunities.

The other two divisions, affordable housing and public parking, already are in the lower level of Carnegie Town Hall and will not be moving.

City departments use different buildings throughout the city, but the only other department that is housed in leased space is the city health department’s vector control division, which houses mosquito control staff, a lab and the trucks used to spray for mosquitoes.

Quanbeck Etten said the moves and remodeling should make adequate space in City Hall for at least the next three to five years, and other buildings have adequate space for city employees.

“We’ll need to re-assessment then,” she said. “A lot of things change in three to five years.”